Artist Statement

Unnatural Selection

We are at a very interesting time in history. Advances in medicine and technology have enabled us to make decisions never before thought possible. The pace of genetic manipulation is far outstripping the pace of natural evolution by orders of magnitude. We can now choose the gender of our children, clone our pets, and make lab rats glow with the bioluminescence of jellyfish. What is next? What does the future hold?

Most people are unfamiliar with certain aspects of the natural world. In my first series of photographs, "Meet the Beetles," I worked to show the beauty of anatomical structure in the insect world. In this new series of photographs, "Unnatural Selection," I have taken my skill in repairing existing insects and used it to create entirely new species of insect.

Like a well-meaning researcher, I started out exploring the wonders of nature, then I learned to repair nature, then I began to perfect nature. It was a slippery slope that led me to begin recreating nature. Yeats said, "A terrible beauty is born." My terrible beauties were not born, but fabricated to be photographed.